What Not To Eat in College

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I don’t have a cookie. But if I did have a cookie, I would give it to Blue_lights_of_ny for his/her/its awesome suggestion: “Someone should write a post about how college food will kill you.” Blue_lights_of_ny, I am the someone you’ve been waiting for. I love you.

Let me start off by saying that college food isn’t THAT bad. It’s decent. Mediocre. 2.5 out of 5 stars. Seriously, ask any college student what they think of the food and I bet you the cookie I don’t have that they’ll say, “It’s al lright.” Now, not all of it is GOOD for you- pizza, french fries, ice cream, french fries, cookies, french fries, I really love french fries. Those “good bad” foods are fine in moderation. It’s the “bad bad, I wouldn’t feed this to my dog” foods you need to avoid at all costs if you value your life.

WHAT NOT TO EAT IN COLLEGE

Tacos: The meat of the problem here is well, the meat. Did it come from a cow? Are you sure? Could it be the leftover burgers from Tuesday that sat under the heat lamp for too long? What’s all that liquid at the bottom? If you ever start a meal thinking, “I’m going to regret this later,” you probably shouldn’t be eating it in the first place.

Indian: Now I’m a big fan of diversity. I think experiencing different cultures is great and a delicious way to do that is to try their food. But if your dining hall has trouble making subpar mac and cheese, there’s no way it can pull off palak paneer. So if you’re looking for authentic Indian food and not “I think this curry is canned tomato sauce,” you’ll want to try an actual restaurant.

Meat that you can’t immediately tell what it is: Enough said.

Eggs: I just kept trying them, hoping that each time will be different. This time for sure they won't be watery gobs of yellow goo. Maybe this time, they came from actual chickens. It never happens.

Stir fry: It sounds like such a good idea. Put all the tasty vegetables/meat/tofu you want in the bowl and watch as your meal cooks right in front of you. Only two problems: 1) The line is way too long because they can only cook so much at a time and 2) Because they want to make the line move faster, they don’t cook the food for long enough so the end result is broccoli that’s still frozen on the inside. Not yum.

WHAT'S GOOD

Salad: All you can eat salad bar- can’t mess that up!

Holiday food: A lot of colleges have a special meal right before Thanksgiving and Christmas where they either bring out the best stuff they’ve got or cater good stuff in. One of my friends had lobster tails and filet mignon. Yeah.

Question time for all you college kids: What’s the worst thing you ever ate at the dining hall? Leave it in the comments! (If you’re in high school still, what’s the worst thing you ever ate from the cafeteria?)

(Mine would have to be a “make your own” burrito consisting of a paper towel tortilla, frozen black beans, wilted lettuce, and not-cheese. I took two bites, stood up, and got a plate of french fries instead.)